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The French establishment is unwell. This illness is affecting its politicians, its security apparatus, its economists, its intellectuals, its academics, its administrators, its syndicate leaders, its expatriates, and its media. What France has been facing for a week now is an updated version of the events of 2005. The killing of young Nael by a police officer has opened a whole Pandora’s box of secrets and undisclosed information. Many are seizing this opportunity to criticize the current regime’s inability to put in place a solid social inclusion system. Others evoke the absence of a strong government that would succeed at containing radical movements and stopping acts of vandalism. In both cases, there is a total disregard for an otherwise real struggle between the extreme left and the extreme right, with no moderate central ideology to balance the two out.
The media does not shy away from covering this struggle: famous political, syndical, and academic figures are endeavoring to comprehend the reasons behind illicit acts such as arson, theft, and the destruction of public and private spaces. Some believe that fatal mistakes have been made when it comes to France’s immigration policy, while others are mentioning a lack of proper education with regard to the values of freedom, equality, and fraternity inherent to the republic. In any case, the events that are unfolding in France now are tangible proof that a struggle is going on related to the identity of the regime itself and not an imbalance affecting the nature of the public order.
That being said, one must acknowledge the fact that this new reality is characterized by a blatant exaggeration of the values stipulated by the French people’s social contract, at the center of which lie France’s constitution, its institutions, and all its current laws. Evidently, human rights are the common denominator of all these concepts.
Additionally, this same reality shows a fundamental confusion: the recent elections have shown that, despite the ground gained by the far right, the French people still stand firmly against all forms of populism, racism, and radical nationalism. Therefore, the values and the constitution of the fifth republic remain solid, even though institutional democracy and public opinion are prone to an existential crisis.
